Con Cracked

Tags

Biking, Commitment, Communication, Cycling, DEFCON, Durga, North Carolina, OAF- old and fat, Patricia T. Kenel. goddess, Pillsbury Doughboy, Raleigh

I, for better or worse, richer or poorer, pledged my undying love, honor and cherished adulation for a living, breathing goddess when I vowed, for better or worse, to cleave solely unto her until death do we part. It was a good bargain, at least for me, but maybe not so much for the goddess PTK, aka Durga. In any case, when I make a commitment I keep it and when, on the morning of Saturday, May 25th I committed with Durga to cycle twenty-five miles that was exactly what I intended to do.

“We can ride that far if you’d like,” said she, “but that means we’re going to go slow. Lee,” she added, knowing my didactic grammar obsession.

“These days I only ride slowly,” said I. “For, as with EAP’s Raven, my days of fit and fast are, ‘Nevermore.'”

“Didn’t work,” Durga declares of my Raven reference, shaking her head. “ETA?”

“PDQ?”

Durga lets forth a heavy sigh. (See, this is why I know who got the better end of this marriage, I get her while she’s stuck with me.) “Eleven?” she asks.

“Yes,” I confirm. “We can depart the gate at eleven a.m. Twenty-five miles?”

“I guess,” Durga agrees.

In my mind we now have a commitment, a contract, to cycle 25 miles: A long way for us. Durga fills four water bottles (hey it’s hot out at high noon in Raleigh at the end of May) as I slip into something a little more cycleable.

If PTK is the goddess Durga then I, KAK, am the PDB, or Pillsbury Doughboy. My shape is best described as cylindrical aka Dad Bod basic, with my equal circumference, chest, waste and hip measurements. (No, “waste” is not a typo.) We’re kitted, as the kids say, and our speedy, sleek and svelte Trek racing bikes are pumped, primed and ready to progress.

Garishly clothed, sunglassed and helmeted I will lead the way through the maze of residential streets for our twenty-five mile bike ride. Our route will simply be a variation on my bike commute, something I have now done half-a-thousand times in the 18 months we have lived in Raleigh.

Before snapping our cleated shoes firmly into our pedals Durga asks, “How far again?”

“At least twenty-four, planning on twenty-five?”

“Okay,” says she, coasting down our driveway and then struggling up the hill in too high a gear.

Durga does not like to “spin,” to put her bike in lowest gear and struggle up the inclines at a high eighties RPM rate that relies more on technique than brute strength. Nope. She’s a masher. Though her power-to-weight ratio and fitness levels are vastly superior to mine this allows me to pass her on the inclines.

Hey, you ever try telling a goddess what to do? One that you’re married to? Good luck! I spin, she mashes.

We have a quasi-regular out and back route that we do that allows us to ride up to 22 miles but to reach 25 we’ll wind our way a bit differently. I lead, Durga follows, and we proceed at our typical hard-working but snail-paced rate of 14 mph average. Even though the course is slightly different Durga knows when we have reached our far point and have begun our return. She asks, “How far are we going?”

“Twenty-five miles,” I reply. “As I said.” (See, grammar. It’s not like, it’s ‘as.’)

“I thought you said 23?”

“Nope. I said 24, 25. You’re the one who tells me I need to lose weight.”

“But you said 23.”

“Do you want to do 23?” I reply, pausing to wait for a gap in car traffic as we prepare to cross High House Road. “Because I said 25.”

“Whatever,” my goddess responds in her New York state of voice. I lead on, smug and self-satisfied that I can do something fitness related better than my goddess. (I cycle ten times more than she and she can both literally and figuratively kick my ass in any other physical endeavor.)

“At least I’ll always have cycling,” I declare in a poor Hump Bogart as we cross over High House. Durga does not get the reference, primarily because I uttered it under my breath. Hey, I don’t want her to literally kick my booty. Not that she would. I think.

As a bike commuter I typically ride eight to ten miles twice a day. Getting out of the teens for a continuous hour and forty-five minute ride is a big deal for me. Since spring arrived I’ve gone twenty plus continuous miles a handful of times. Today’s 25 miles will be a stretch but I’m committed. (Or at least should be.) We cycle on and start another climb.

Even spinning my legs protest. “Ruh-roh!” I think, quoting the Twentieth Century’s greatest philosopher, Scooby-Doo. We continue to continue and my beloved’s shape shrinks in my rearview. (Yes I cycle with a mirror. Brightly flashing, daytime visible, head and taillights too. Safety first!)

I get to an intersection where we need to turn if we are going to cycle 25 miles and pause, waiting for my beloved. “What?!” she demands, her normally gruff self on NYC DEFCON One alert.

“Go straight if you want to cut the ride short, turn right if you want to cycle the twenty-five we agreed to.” (Poke, poke, bear, bear.)

Durga goes straight. I am not displeased. We catch a red light at Cary Parkway and I pull next to her and smile. “Four miles from here,” I say. “Should hit right around 22.”

“Great,” she says, sounding anything but. “It’s green!” she declares, nodding at the traffic light. “Go!” she commands.

I go. I lead us back to Beulah, to Eden, to our promised land. We arrive and I say, “Twenty-two and a half. Glad we cut the ride short. My calves were cramping. Do you intend to do long rides during the summer?”

“Of course,” says she, giving me a dirty look. “Why would you even have to ask?”

Why indeed? I am married to a goddess.

What do goddesses require? Sacrifice.

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Uppity Trash

Tags

1968, Bicycles for Transportation, Bicycling, Birmingham, Cars and Bikes, Cary North Carolina, Cycling, Fear, Fuqua Varina, Kettlebridge and Stoneleigh Drives, Martin Luther King Junior, May 1st 2019, NCAA, North Carolina, Obeying The Rules, Onanism, Pain, Perception Is Reality, Privilege, Raleigh, Robert G, Rules Of The Road, Safety, Soccer, Social Contract, Threats, Visibility

Now, some folk don’t know their place and some folks don’t know their manners. Me? I knows both. I was born in Fuqua so far back that I made our little town’s population hit the thousand mark. Now I know Fuqua sounds like it ought-ta be a word my mama’d wash my mouth out with soap if’n she was still alive to hear me say it, God rest her soul, but it ain’t. Fuqua, just like niggardly and masticate are all perfectly fine Parlor words.

Niggardly’s just French for cheap, stingy, and masticate ain’t got nothing to do with Onanism, you know? Self-pollution? Masturbating? Spilling your seed? No, masticating’s just chewing with our back teeth, our molars. Gnawing on something not whacking on nothing.

Nope, ain’t nothing wrong t’all with masticating, though I’d be careful  using t’other word much. Ya know the ex-pression? “Perception’s reality?” Don’t need no Realtor to tell me that if I go round saying niggardly when I mean cheap or stingy somebody’s likely to get the wrong idea and wanna pop me in the nose. Nope, no sense tying my shoes in a watermelon patch as my pappy used to say. Nuh-uh, it ain’t enough to not only not be up to no good, we own’t wanna look like we’re up-ta no good neither.

Live an let live, love thy neighbor and follow the Golden Rule, that’s what Mama and Pappy used to say to me and it’s what I try to live by. And speaking of neighbors, Raleigh’s Fuqua’s neighbor just a hoot ‘n a holler north-a-here. You know Raleigh? The capital of North Carolina? What’s sure ‘nough the prettiest state in the Union?

Fuqua’s alright. Got started by a French feller named Willy who decided the town’s original Indian, that’s Native American to you snowflakes, of Sippihaw weren’t good enough and named it after hisself. Then, just about the time I started school, same year some them decided to march on Washington for equal rights which is a fine thing ‘cept it  instigated that Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham? ole Fuqua teamed up with Varina, to create Fuqua Varina, but now I’m afraid I wandered off topic. Nope, don’t fret about Varina, just keep your eye on Fuqua, the apex of gentility.

It ain’t like Fuqua or Fuqua Varina’s not a right fine place to live cause it is. A young feller I knowed since way back in the nineteen-eighties moved to Fuqua. Plenty a fine folks in Fuqua. Nother young feller there by the name a Randy who seems like real fine fellow but just like everywhere you go there’s good kind and bad kind in Fuqua. There’s the kind that believe in the Golden Rule, in that live and let live, takes all kinds gentility that my mama and pappy lived and preached and then there’s them that figure because they come from money and can hide behind anonymity, that they can just harass and hound a feller into submission.

You know the kind? Bully-boys who’ve lived lives of privilege since they were tucked away on their mama’s nipple? Silver spoon fed and given a Porsche soon as they turned sixteen? Just like everywhere else, Fuqua’s got that sort too.

And it’s a shame really, when these hhighfalutin, soccer playing, daddy gave em everything they ever needed except decency decide ta harass a fella. Happened to a feller who’s new round these parts. Seems this feller was out riding his bike up Cary way, that’s tween Fuqua and Raleigh, when one a them boys of privilege decided he’d just ignore a stop sign and zip right through it.

Boom! Quicker’n you can say NCAA scholarship this poor feller’s on the ground. Dazed, disturbed and angry. Well, I don’t know what happened but when this poor old feller just started telling the truth some fancy-boy from Fuqua starts harassing him, some snot-nose feller that weren’t there and didn’t have nothing to do with it.

Sad, ain’t it? When some uppity child thinks he can harass an injured man and call him names just because little miss rich boy’s friend done something wrong and the poor old man talked about it, all the while keeping the bad driver’s identity a secret? Sad, and a reflection on how these boys was reared.

Yeah, it’s a shame alright but I guess when some poor man is literally face down in the street because of the actions of the rich and privileged that we can count on ‘em to protect their own rather than state the truth and live up to their mistakes. Sure is a shame though. Casts Fuqua in a mighty poor light, mighty poor I say. 

Conflicts

Tags

"Four Weddings and an Elvis", New Play Festival, Nicola Lefler, North Carolina, Ten by Ten, Tim Coyle

My fellow Four Weddings and an Elvis castmate Tim Coyle asked who was auditioning for “Ten by Ten,” a set of ten, ten-minute new plays by Raleigh area writers. I asked what I needed to do to prep and our FWaaE director Nicola Lefler said, “You just need to show up.” Boom! I was in. I know how to show up.

I’ve done half-a-dozen new play festivals in the last nine years. I like bringing to life works by people I know, plays that have never been brought to stage before. I like to breathe life into the Golems that have been laid at our feet and even though I’d been assured that I only had to appear and audition my little heart out to have a chance at earning a part in one of the ten short shows I took the time to read the scripts for which I was auditioning.

It’s a shame I didn’t dive in just a little bit deeper. If I had I might have brought a list of the roles I’ve played in the last decade. I might have known when the show dates were.  Barring that, maybe I could have looked a bit more carefully at the provided Conflicts Calendar.

A Conflict Calendar is common in Community Theatre, it is a listing of what dates an actor won’t be available. Filling mine in for “Ten by Ten” I noted that I had conflicts during Dress Rehearsal, a definite no-no. I saw that, shrugged my shoulders and thought, ‘Whatever. I’m here now, I might as well audition,’ which I did, with heart and soul.

I think the audition went well. When I was done auditioning Nicola, who will be directing one of the ten shows, looked at my personal information sheet and asked where my street was. I told her, “Three miles south of here.”

She shook her head, sighed deeply and asked, “What town?!”

Huh. Guess I didn’t fill out my form so well. I told her. It got worse. She turned to my conflict sheet and asked, “Uh, is this really your conflict sheet?”

My turn to sigh deeply. “Yes. I know it’s in tech-week so I probably won ‘t get cast but I figured I’d audition anyway; you know, in case somebody got desperate?”

“Tech-week?” she squeaked, “You have conflicts on performance dates!”

“Really?! Sorry. Well, I’ll check with the goddess and if you offer me a really juicy part I’ll see if I can get out of our vaca at the beach.”

“You’re sure?” Nicola asked.

“Of course I’m sure! What do you think I am, scatter brained?”

We’ll see. If I’m offered a juicy part or two in the 2019 Ten by Ten I’ll forfeit my four day beach frolic with my goddess, if not we’ll do a little triathloning and a lot of NC beach lounging.  Either way, I win.

I’ll let you know.

Measuring Time

Tags

"A Comedy of Errors ", "Measure For Measure", "Much Ado about Nothing", "Timon Of Athens", Bare Theatre Productions, Club Athens, Francis Carl Kenel, Illinois, Lawrence v Texas, LGBTQ, Mark Twain, North Carolina, Obergefell v. Hodges, Raleigh, Saint John's MCC, SCOTUS, The Wicked Witch

My father was a great man and through his life’s work he saved hundreds of thousands of lives. I loved, and love, my father. Like nearly all children I idolized Dad; wanted to be just like him.

Mesmer’s spell began to dissolve before I turned ten and like most pubescent children his magic cloak had slipped precipitously before I started high school. Of course, it wasn’t Dad who changed, it was I.

Just as Mark Twain predicted, my Dad’s intelligence was restored as I grew. We agreed on most things and my realization that he, like every other human being past, present or future, was filled with flaws did not destroy my love and respect for him: We’re all yin and yang. There are, however, two intertwined subjects on which we disagreed: Shakespeare and homosexuality.

Certainty that homosexuality was wrong was overwhelming in Western Society in the early Twentieth Century and men who engaged in sexual acts with other men (or, theoretically, women with women) were subject to prison. Prison. Dad, born in rural Michigan in 1929, was a product of his time and space.

The 1960’s were a time of great upheaval and societal change and these changes began to truly manifest themselves in the summer of sixty-five. Conformity was due for a bust and change was rife, but sexual union that was not female to male remained illegal into Twenty-First Century America.

We’re all products of our time and space and my 1961 birth and Midwest space gave me a tepid toleration of homosexuality. Coincidentally, my birth year coincided with the first in the nation decriminalization of gay sex. The 1961 Illinois legislature introduced a bill decriminalizing sex between consenting, same sex adults. Illinois, the state in which I spent my formative years, passed legislation in 1962 that began the slow erosion of discriminatory laws targeting same sex relations. While Illinois’ 1962 reform was a momentous step forward, removal of the remaining 49 states’ anti-sodomy laws was a slow, hotly debated reform.

It was not until 2003 that gay sex became lawful throughout the USA when the Supreme Court overturned laws prohibiting it vis-a-vis Lawrence v. Texas. Of course, making gay sex legal didn’t usher in equal rights. My father passed away seventeen months before SCOTUS extended marriage equality with Obergefell v. Hodges in June 2015.

My change from tepid toleration of all things LGBTQ to acceptance and advocacy began in 2009 when I became involved in community theatre. Even in conservative, Midwestern Iowa (I’d moved to six  different states since leaving Illinois in 1971) theatre holds a higher percentage of gay people than does the general population and it’s hard to remain tepid towards people one comes to love wholeheartedly. The Iowa supreme court ruled in favor of same sex marriage the same year I stepped onto a stage and my refusal to allow society to portray gay people as less than or to deny any minority the same civil rights granted the majority began its journey from nascent awareness to outspoken advocacy and voting that same year.

What’s any of that have to do with Shakespeare? Because… shhh!… Shakespeare wrote love sonnets to men, a very strong reason for my 1929 born father to reject him and his kind.

My father never saw me perform. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he lived over a thousand miles away from me. In Iowa I was privileged to have roles in two very staid, traditional enactments of Shakespeare plays, A Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing and in Raleigh I jumped into two very nontraditional presentations of Measure For Measure and Timon Of Athens. Nontraditional? Timon Of Athens was at least as much of a rewrite as it was a reworking. It was also an LGBTQ love-fest.

Bare Theatre’s Timon was held at two venues, an extremely LGBTQ catering church, Raleigh’s Saint John’s MCC, and the Wicked Witch nightclub, a venue that we old people would call a gay bar. I stopped frequenting churches in the 1980’s and I last went to a nightclub in 1983, so this was new terrain for me. LGBTQ flags adorned many of my fellow cast and crew members clothing and the show pivoted on gender-bending, turning stereotypical gender roles on their head and recognition of power, as in who has it and who doesn’t. We also moved Shakespeare’s play from ancient Athens of 400 BCE to my personal heyday of 1987 CE at Club Athens. I played three small roles, two as men and one as a woman. Timon was driven theatre, not light entertainment. 

I miss my dad. I wish he’d had a chance to see me perform. I don’t miss “his” days, his times’ inability to see beyond the unreasoned, Biblical prejudices that were used by so many to deny equality to others. I don’t miss rigid sex roles and I don’t miss laws designed to target minority groups. (How could I miss that? There’s still plenty of discriminatory laws.) My dad was a great man but his time is past and the future we can create through love, equality and a realization that diversity makes us strong is a future worth working towards. In a tiny way Timon does just that. 

We play through Saturday, March 16th.

Thirty Below

Tags

Cold, Improvise- Adapt- Overcome, Iowa, North Carolina, Perception, Temperate Zone, Weather

Whoa! Thirty below? I’ve thirty above,
round me are whiners in parkas and gloves.
Weepy, sad babies who think that it’s cold
when temperature is ice making woe.

Complaining ’bout frost on windshield of car,
look at me crooked as in shirtsleeves are.
Day’s sunny and calm, but babies complain;
hell, just yesterday rode home in the rain.

“Whether the weather,” is rhyme old as speech,
just look out-of-doors is what I beseech.
Assess the sunshine, the wind and the rain,
dress for conditions, for Lord’s sake use brain!

Brisk is not biting, though I will admit,
there’s some more inclined for weathering it.
Give me thirty-F over thirty-C,
(Zero/Eighty-six compare Metric’lly.)

There’s pease-porridge hot, and pease-porridge cold,
weather complaining  does quickly grow old.
Adapt, overcome! Why not improvise?
Apraise resources and gather supplies!

Great-googly-moogly, we’re in temp’rate zone!
You think great outdoors should not cause some moans?
We live on the Earth, not Heaven above,
so please stop bitchin’ and embrace the love!

The love of winter, of autumn and spring!
Whoa, you say summer? That’s whole diff’rent thing.
I can’t abide heat. Lord, give me AC!
Why are you looking askance at poor me?

 

Friar, Friar: A “Measure for Measure” story.

Tags

"Measure For Measure", Blood Donation, Faith, North Carolina, Raleigh Little Theatre, RLT

I don’t do mystical much, which is a bit ironic as I’m playing Friar Peter, one of Shakespeare’s ubiquitous man-of-the-cloth father-figures, in Raleigh Little Theatre’s production of Measure For Measure. As I said, usually I don’t go for hocus-pocus explanations, but today I cast aside my unwillingness to suspend disbelief and just accepted that there are greater powers at work than mere mortals can ever know.

Reared Catholic, this friar-figure is pretty versed in that brand of Christianity and regardless of faith I know that thankfulness for the myriad blessings that flow our way never hurt anyone. Still, while I have  received blessings innumerable I no more credit God for said blessings than do I blame God for the slings and arrows that are cast my way. Things happen, sometimes I get lucky, sometimes not. Today I got lucky.

My day didn’t start lucky. I had grabbed two complimentary Measure For Measure preview tickets available to cast and crew with the intention of giving them to a coworker of limited means. A good thought, but one that proved irrelevant as preview night finds him working late, thus making him unavailable to attend. I tried another coworker but she too was unavailable that night and is planning to attend on a different date. Stymied in my original intent I placed the tickets in my wallet and took them along with me to my appointment at the Red Cross blood donation center with the idea that I might be able to distribute them to a worthy, unknown and in need theatre goer. At least, I think it was my idea, Friar Peter might have a different perspective.

I began giving blood in 1979 and continued to do so for about ten years, and then I couldn’t. My HIV status got in the way. The need for a safe blood supply is very important and around 1990 my blood got flagged because an HIV test came up “Indeterminant.”

Neither positive nor negative I headed to my physician who pronounced me HIV free, which was great, but the Red Cross, in their need to not only have but to appear to have a safe blood supply, declared me persona non grata in perpetuity. I, or at least my blood, wasn’t wanted. (They let me teach CPR and First Aid classes, no bogeyman there.) I lived an outcast and in the wake of 9/11 even begged the Red Cross to reconsider but they kindly but firmly told me no.

My lack of giving continued until 2015 when I moved to Florida. Florida, unlike most of the country, uses One Blood to collect blood, not the Red Cross. One Blood saw my negative HIV status and gladly took my blood over and over, a lovely circumstance that came to an end when I moved to North Carolina, a Red Cross state. Determined to remain a blood donor I petitioned the Red Cross via phone and email, explaining that I had been donating blood regularly for three years. Faced with a preponderance of evidence proving their lifetime Keith ban irrelevant they agreed to review my case. They did, I was clear, and I have been donating blood in North Carolina for the last year.

What does any of this have to do with providence, preview tickets and a higher power? Maybe nothing, but Deborah, one of the phlebotomist, (that’s blood sucker for those who don’t like four syllable words) is the woman who took my blood. Deborah, a tiny New York City born and bred puertorriqueña age mate, has taken my blood before. In fact, I had convinced her to audition for Measure For Measure but she got cold feet.

She also got thyroid cancer, but that was in the past. Deborah grabbed the next gal in line but after doing the initial iron count, checking blood pressure and other check-list items the would be donor was ineligible to give today so Deborah, who would not have otherwise taken my blood, did.

I had seen Deborah right after our auditions but not since so it was with great sadness that I learned that she is again having thyroid troubles and will be traveling back to NYC and Mount Sinai for further treatment. I asked her if two tickets to our play would help her feel better and her tear soaked eyes assured me they would.

I gave my tickets to a gal who dedicates her life to helping others, a woman I’m determined to bring with me to an audition and one who is grateful under literally life challenging circumstances. I don’t know about a higher power, but I know Deborah and I went full circle for our Measure For Measure and I couldn’t be happier about her and her mother being in our audience on Wednesday.

Oh! By the way? During donation I also learned that Deborah has a phobia-
about vampires! She related a recent dream of hers right out of 1972’s  blaxploitation film Blacula in which a dead ringer for film star Charles McCauley gave her something a bit deeper than a hickey.

Get it? She’s a bloodsucker with a fear of mythical bloodsuckers! I’m definitely calling Higher Power on that one.

Here’s to measuring up.

Authoritative

Tags

"Measure For Measure", Benjamin Tarlton, North Carolina, Raleigh Little Theatre, RLT

Authoritative expert to masses did decree
how Bacchus’ children should wrangle theatrically.
Close quarter pugilists that were schooled by Lucio
slapped, raped and assaulted on a stage theatrical.

With great dedication and the finest of panache
measured our drill sergeant as he fought for zero cost.
Through combat mock and mighty and slap to bro from sis
Lucio demanded actors take but slightest risk.

Elbows flying skyward as he she runs in pursuit
soon upon her masses elbows stuck though resolute.
Everywhere are touches look extemporaneous
General maestro every punch choreographs.

Not just in the acting but in the instructing too
Lucio’s a master, many skills come shining through.
To watch him on the stage is experience that’s sweet
but as tactician mage his skill is fait accompli.

Snowy Ride

Tags

Bicycles, Bicycling, Crashing, Fitness Fun, Fun, North Carolina, Raleigh, Reedy Creek, Snow Ride!, Speed Kills, Umstead State Park

A glorious indiscretion occurred out in the snow, after miles of trudge, trudge decided to just let go. I thought it would be thrilling and I thought it would be fun, if I took my mountain bike out on a snowy wet run!

I had to go out anyway and attend to some chores so with my old blue mountain bike trails figured I’d explore. I chose location carefully, state park where cars go not, and on my old blue Cannondale exited parking lot.

Crossed over Highway Forty on dirt road called Reedy Creek, figured I would have some fun as through the cold snow I streaked. Fear streaking was but pipe-dream as through uphill snow I trudged, finally hit a steep descent and gained speed on my run.

“No brakes, no brakes!” my mantra as I gathered up some speed, know I wore a cocky smile as handled downhill with ease. With three miles behind me nother downhill did emerge, with first success under my belt I gave in to my urge. My urge was ever faster, and faster I surely went! As I went my mouth sang Eagles’ song bout lights turning red.

I tend to be cautious and seldom live life on the edge, but down the twisty fire-road you bet your ass I sped. I was in my glory and my face wore an impish grin, it’s said pride comes before a fall, I fell from pride of sin.

I hit a wide expanse of bridge that had much deeper snow, hoped I might stay upright till I lay face up, don’t-cha know. Suffered no lacerations, though my right wrist has deep bruise, I laughed as I straightened bars, kept on as had naught to lose.

My silly little story’s truthful from start to the end and knowing now what did not then I’d do it all again!

A glorious indiscretion occurred out in the snow, after miles of trudge, trudge decided to just let go. I thought it would be thrilling and I thought it would be fun, if I took my mountain bike out on a snowy wet run!

Hit and Run: A Joe Kleen Story

Tags

11/22/2018, Boston Marathon, Cary North Carolina, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, Fear, First Responders, Joe Kleen, Love, Misty Kleen, North Carolina, Running, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Terrorism, Thanksgiving

Just like the old days Misty upper body was bundled up with three long-sleeve tee-shirts and an insulated, wind-stopper Pearl Izumi jacket, while her lower half wore tights over capris. To complete the ensemble she’d wrapped a wind-stopper combination head band and ear warmer around her short white hair and one of her three upper body insulating layers had extra-long-sleeves with thumb cut-outs so she could keep her hands as toasty as the rest of her.

Joe on the other hand wore a single long-sleeve tee, a windbreaker, ratty old headband and baby blue, little-girl knit gloves bedazzled with peace signs.  Leaning in close to his wife of 32 years Joe asked, “What’s your goal time?”

Misty exhaled, drew her shoulders up and mock shivered. The time was 8:40 in the  morning and the sun had risen a full 100 minutes earlier. Thanksgiving 2018 had dawned bright, sunny, and, at least as far as Misty was concerned, cold. “Well, I’m not sure. Under forty-five? I’m really not feeling very well. How about you? Any predictions for the fight, Mr. T?”

“Is that T for Turkey?” Joe replied. “My goal is to finish in under an hour. Eight K in 60 minutes is right around five miles per hour. I can do that. I think!”

Misty smiled. “Sure you can, champ. And I heard this course is a little long so don’t get all bent out of shape if you don’t make it.”

“No worries. I’m afraid my go hurries days are over. So, what’s wrong? Cold?”

“As in do I have one or am I? The answer is yes; to both. It’s freezing out here!”

Joe looked at his wife and shook his head. “Not by a long-shot, hot-shot. Gotta be at least forty, probably closer to 45. You sure you don’t want to take off one of those layers?” he asked, emphasizing ‘sure.’

Misty grimaced and shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I can always tie my jacket around my waist if I get too warm, not that that’s likely. You want to move up closer to the start? It looks like the kids are finishing their one-mile fun-run,” she declared, nodding at the little people who swam their way upstream, weaving through the thousand deep crowd waiting for the start of the Cary, North Carolina Turkey Trot race.

“Me?” Joe asked, eyebrows raised in incredulity. “No. As in. No. I belong in the back.”

“Okay,” Misty replied, winking at her husband. “That’s fine by me, but I’m going to scoot up some.”

Joe nodded, threw his arms open and hugged Misty as she stepped into his embrace. “Better hit podium finish for your age group if you don’t want to walk home,” he said, kissing his wife and returning her wink.

“Hmm. Interesting. Especially since I drove here and I’ll finish before you. Any wagers?”

“That you’ll finish before me? Sure. Like, how much, a hundred bucks?”

“Har, har, Joe, har, har. I’m going up front. Enjoy yourself!” she said, kissing him once more before winding through the crowd.

“I will!” Joe insisted to her retreating form. “See you at the finish.”

There was no National Anthem and the race start was split, with elite runners getting a two minute head start on the remaining 900 plus. Racers lumbered forward, walking until they passed beneath the inflatable finish-line marker and strode over the timing mat which cued them to start their engines and go! Crossing the threshold, Joe jogged, trying and failing to see his wife in the distance.

The beginning of the race meandered mostly downhill through residential streets. Joe peeled his jacket first, tying it around his waist by the sleeves. Next his ear-warmers came off and were placed in his left front sweatpants pocket, zippered shut to keep the two-decade old head-gear safe from loss. Lastly, long before he’d run half-a-mile, Joe plucked off his little girl gloves and zipped those into his right pants pocket. Passing mile-marker one Joe checked his old Timex Ironman triathlon watch. The stopwatch read 11:42, which was decidedly faster than he had feared. Joe bobbled his head back and forth, smiled and picked up the pace. “Just for a bit,” he promised himself under his breath.

The residential streets flowed along and near mile marker two the race went left onto divided boulevard, four-lane, Morrisville  Parkway. Morrisville Parkway was usually a busy road and the inner lane eastbound and outer lane returning toward the west were cordoned off with orange traffic cones to segregate the runners from the drivers. Joe turned left onto Morrisville Parkway and immediately felt his flesh crawl; something was just not right.

Whatever was bothering him it did not adversely affect his pace. At mile-marker two his stopwatch read 22:40 and Joe asked himself, “Did I just finish mile number two in less than eleven minutes? That can’t be right,” he added shaking his head and trudging onward.

The crowd was thin in the back third of the pack and Joe grimaced as he saw a woman step to the right of the orange cones in order to stride around a trio of walkie-talkies that presented a slowly moving barricade to progress. “Whoa,” he whispered to himself as a driver honked at the woman as she crowded the car’s space, “there’s no prize money for coming in six-hundred-sixty-sixth.”

The blaring horn brought Joe’s fears to the surface. ‘Really? Really?’ he asked of himself. ‘That’s what’s bothering you? That we’re sitting ducks running with our backs to traffic and that somebody’s going to plow into us on purpose? Lighten up, dude, we’re not in France, or, for that matter, Boston,’ he added, thinking of IED’s and the brothers Tsarnaev.

With racers running both east and west on their respective sides of the streets Joe mistakenly assumed that the race was a simple out-and-back, and with that assumption he scanned the oncoming throngs in search of his wife. At first his failure to see her mystified him but before another half-mile passed he saw that the runners were making a small loop off of Morrisville and he figured that Misty was far enough ahead of him to have entered the loop but not far enough ahead to have returned to Morrisville Parkway before he’d passed the little section. Passing mile marker three he again checked his watch: 33:14. “Oh, it is on!” he said aloud before adding quietly, “Come on legs, two more miles. Pain is temporary, glory immortal.”

Joe first heard the sirens just as he turned into the course’s side-loop, “Crap,” he said under his breath, “no!” Not sure if the deep bass horns and shrill soprano sirens were ahead or behind him, Joe lumbered on, shaking his head and offering a simple, heartfelt, “Please, God, no,” prayer to the God of his childhood. “Come on!” he hissed as he strode forward. The scurry of sirens grew and an ambulance honked its way through the throngs snaked out before it, inching forward to a gathering of first responders who surrounded, attended and protected a fallen runner. Joe hesitated, he’d once taught First Aid and CPR to his sons’ Scout Troop, but then he inhaled, nodded and moved forward. ‘I can add nothing here. The pros got this,’ his mind told his protesting soul.

Morrisville Parkway returned, and at mile four Joe again checked his watch. Forty-four minutes. “No way!” he exhaled, adding, “Feet don’t fail me now,” as he entered the last uphill stretch. He assured himself that Misty was safe, that she awaited him at the race finish; but no matter how confident his brain was his fear questioned this necessity. Joe struggled on, the accumulated miles, the uphill finish and valiant athletic effort culminating in a race time of 55:30, a time faster than his goal but slower than his dream. Misty called out to him.

“Wow,” she said, walking next to him as he labored to catch his breath, “you look spent. How’d you do?”

Joe nodded wordlessly, pointing forward and gulping air as he walked. Misty asked, “Did you see the woman who had the seizure? She was lying on the side of the road.”

Joe nodded in affirmation then shook his head in protest. “Walk. No talk,” he gasped. They walked, Joe recovered enough from his effort to ask, “How’d you do?”

“Terrible,” Misty replied. “Forty-seven-twenty. How about you?”

“Great. Fifty-five-thirty. You peel any of those layers on your run?”

“Nope. Not a one. Were you warm enough?” Misty countered.

“Perfect, except one shady section where the breeze was in my face; maybe 20 seconds? I was afraid the sirens were because a car had smashed into some runners. Glad to know it was a seizure and not a, well, an attack.”

“Did you think that too? Isn’t that terrible? The first thing we think of is that we’re under attack? Well, as Mom always said, ‘It’s a different world.’”

“It is,” Joe replied, taking his wife’s hand and kissing it. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving to you too,” Misty answered, squeezing her husband’s hand three times fast.

Barely Cogent

Tags

Cary North Carolina, North Carolina, Raleigh, Snow, winter

I’ve the spirit of an infant
which you’ll notice from the instance
you’re subjected to my presence.
(Yes, my thoughts are barely cogent.)
I could go frolic on my street
fore there’s not a soul a stirring
I admit the thought’s alluring
but I fear it’s time for shov’ling.
Worry hours of snow showers
gonna lead to loss of power
as in comfy home I cower
sitting hour after hour.

Guess I’ll postpone my partaking
of the snow fueled merry-making
and instead of play I’m flinging
fluffy stuff from where car’s parking.
Into each life some work must fall
for some snowfall does not enthrall;
ice is slippery, may want to crawl:
Winter have mercy on us all.
Please wish me well and wish me luck,
here’s praying car does not get stuck,
if in snowdrift I am dead duck
would you be nice and call tow-truck?